June 1999 NUMBER2

C & 0 Canal Association concerned with the conservation of the natural and historical environment of the C&O Canal and the Potomac River Basin VOLUME XXXI June 1999 NUMBER2 The Level Walker Issue As we with good reason emphasize the Level Walker Program in this issue of Along the Towpath, and muster extra strength which will surely be required to support the NPS "Trash in, Trash out" policy, I remind you that it was a level walker that introduced me to the Park in 1970. At that time I was so ignorant about canal matters that I thought, when he told me about being a "level walker", that he had gotten so old and decrepit that he could no longer handle hills and mountains. Needless to say, my 30 years along the towpath since then have provided abundant iilumination and practical experience as Linda and I have picked up trash and reported on conditions along our own three mile level. And I think that there is no more basic program of support for the park than this. I know of course that there are many ways we serve, and some of them more visible and interactive than this. But the scattered, often unseen and unthanked efforts that keep the park neat and attractive from one end to the other: why there is nothing more basic than this to make the towpath attractive to potential users. And we can tell those users who we are, and what we do, and invite them to join us on the level. --Tom Perry Several Months ago, a suggestion was made that an issue of Valley and the Canal, and who are willing to "patrol" a Along the Towpath be dedicated to Level Walkers--hence this section twice a year and report on its condition and its month's theme. The name Level Walker comes from the old attractions. The condition-reports will have much value in canal term for one who patrolled a section (level) between locks this pre-Park period when detailed surveillance by the Park along the towpath looking for trouble spots such as leaks. In fact, Service is obviously difficult. As the Park staff increases, level walkers sometimes carried messages and in addition were attention can be turned more completely to what each expected to do a certain amount of canal maintenance. For section contains - in plant and animal life, in geologic today's C&O Canal Association Level Walker, the maintenance interest, in historical association, and in many other work for the most part is not required. fields ..... Enjoy this article from the March 1960 edition of THE LEVEL And so, the Level Walker Program officially began under the WALKER, Volume 1, Number 1, provided from the collection of Chairmanship of Orville Crowder and Co-Chairman Grant the Canal Character himself, Ken Rollins: Conway. Of course, this was a few years after Crowder had pushed a surveyor's wheel up the entire towpath, "making If some future historian wants a date for it, let's call it April careful records a and taking copious notes," said Ken Rollins, in 1st. 1960 - and no puns about April fools! the June 1966 edition of Along the Towpath. "These mileages are the basis for the guide books since published, and in several For April 1 sees the Level Walker program in action from cases where mileages were questioned, re-measurement proved Georgetown to Cumberland. When we started talking to Crowder's records to be accurate." people about it, we thought it would be hard to find 30 participants, each covering 6 miles of Canal. Instead, we've Orville's work with the World Nature Club in the late 1960's kept chopping sections in half to meet the enthusiasm, and adversely impacted on his involvement with the Level Walker we start operation with 70 men along the line. Only a few Program. However, in 1969, at Tom Hahn's suggestion, the sections exceed 3 miles. program was revived. Tom was unanimously volunteered to be the new Chairman (C&O CANALLER, Volume I, Number I, Most of our readers know the plan and purpose by now, August 1969, also provided by Ken). but let's re-state briefly: Since its origin, the program has continued with varying Level Walkers are volunteers who are fond of the Potomac amounts of success, but has always been recognized by the LEVEL WALKERS - continued this large culvert that has many interesting features such as "a stone arch design with a keystone, a face wall that extends three Association Directors as vitally important. For this reason, the to four feet beyond each side of the opening and spreads out Level Walker Chair is also the Second Vice President. fourteen feet at a sixty degree angle as wingwalls which are Currently, Karen Gray is the Level Walker Chair. Karen's past stepped in equal increments at a height of eight fee." (HAER No. efforts as the chair were exemplary and we look forward to her MD-72) current leadership. -- Robert C. Perry Built in the late 1830s, the culvert is approximately 113 feet long with a twelve foot span. Numbered as culvert No. 139 in a Being a Level Walker offers new opportunities for learning proposal from David Lyles (a contractor who also did some of as you will see in the following article. the work on locks 47, 49 and 50 at Four Locks), the culvert's construction required the removal of 1,040 cubic yards of material in the fall of 1835. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A CULVERT Or: There are a lot of stories UNDER the canal! Prather's Neck, which the canal cut across above Four Locks, was a large tract of arable land, part ofwhich was included in an If you walk the towpath much, you walk over them all the time: original patent granted to Lancelot Jacques and Thomas Those wonderful masonry culverts! Don't ignore them. They Johnson. These two men are major personalities in the region's are among the canal's many endangered treasures and a good history and in the 1760s were partners in one of the earliest of number already have been lost and replaced with metal culverts. Antietam ironworks. Thomas Johnson later became well-known Others are deteriorating visibly and headed for the same fate. to George Washington for his promotion of plans to make the Two on my level between McCoy's Ferry and Fort Frederick are Potomac River navigable. Late in Johnson's life he was a a good example. When I began to walk the level in 1977 the president of the Patowmack Company (predecessor to the C&O prism above the culverts was flawless, cleared, and covered with Canal Company) for four years. Another Jacques, Denton grass that was occasionally mowed. Then depressions formed. Jacques, also associated with an original patent in the Prather's In one case in the prism, in another in the berm wall. Over the Neck area, was engaged by the Potomac Company to clear a years the depressions deepened and widened and are now sizable small rapid near Fort Frederick called Garrison Falls. holes making mowing impossible. A stream flows into the one in the prism of its culvert. If I climb down to the level of the The colorful and diverse history of the Four Locks area is culvert and look through it, I can often see water falling from the matched by the extraordinary number of historic structures at stone ceiling into the stream flowing through the culvert. Bit by this location. They include a dry dock, watch shanty, and mule bit this is loosening stones and increasing the permeability above barn, as well as the four lift locks (#47-#50) and a lock house. the culvert vault. Eventually the culvert will collapse. Also nearby is the historic Hassett farm house and a one room school. But don't ignore the road culvert and its importance to There are two kinds of culverts: Road culverts to provide access the historic farmlands beyond. from the inland to the river side of the canal, and drainage culverts to facilitate drainage from the inland side to the river -- by Karen Gray side of the canal. The specification for these culverts as stated in Canal Company documents, were detailed and indicate the importance of these structure. The Historic American Engineering Record's (HAER) report No. MD-72 on the Prather's Neck Road Culvert includes a copy of these specifications. The instructions for the foundations when not founded on rock, merits quotation: "Timbers of suitable size, hewed on two sides, shall be laid one foot apart, and extending under the culvert and its walls, and to the depth of four feet below the bottom of the aforesaid timbers. These timbers shall be first puddled between level with their upper surface; and their whole extent shall be floored over with a course of jointed two inch yellow plank, and each plank secured to the timber by at least six locust pins, eight inches long and one and a quarter inches square. On this foundation the walls of the culvert will be erected." (Appendix A, HAER No. MD-72) The Mule The Prather's neck road culvert is significant as it is still used to provide access to the river-side parking area, boat landing, and picnic grounds at Four Locks. That means one can readily study 2 Along the Towpath A LEVEL WALKER'S VIEW OF THE CANAL Here's the canal as divided into "levels" by the Level Walker Program. Each level has a number and beginning and ending mileages based on those in Tom Hahn's Towpath Guide.

Load more